Meredith Miles Marmaduke

Meredith Miles Marmaduke (28 August 1791-26 March 1864) was Governor of Missouri (D) from 9 February to 20 November 1844, succeeding Thomas Reynolds and preceding John C. Edwards.

Biography
Meredith Miles Marmaduke was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia in 1791, and he served as a colonel of the US Army during the War of 1812. He served as US Marshal for the Tidewater district of Virginia and as clerk of the circuit court before moving to Missouri in 1823, becoming a trader, clerk, and farmer. Marmaduke became a Democratic Party member and the surveyor of Saline County before serving as Thomas Reynolds' Lieutenant-Governor, and he became Governor on 9 February 1844 after Reynolds committed suicide. He refused to pardon three abolitionists who had freed slaves and established a lunatic asylum; his refusal to pardon the abolitionists led to Democrats choosing John C. Edwards as their gubernatorial candidate. Marmaduke sided with the Union when the American Civil War broke out, however, and his son John S. Marmaduke (later Governor of Missouri) became a general of the rival Confederate States of America, while his brother-in-law Claiborne Fox Jackson supported secession. Marmaduke died in Saline County in 1864 at the age of 72.